I don't doubt that the information could be useful to government
investigators. Does that fact justify forcing companies to retain
it? Such a mandate goes beyond the customary assistance that
businesses are required to give in response to a court order. As
with the Clinton administration's
Clipper chip proposal, the defunct ban on
exporting strong encryption software, and the Communications
Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (a.k.a. CALEA, which requires
telecom companies to make their networks tap-friendly), the
government wants to arrange the world to make life easier for law
enforcement agencies. Once we accept this demand as legitimate, the
only question is how to "balance" privacy interests against the
enhanced security promised by unimpeded policing—an inherently
subjective judgment that tends to favor the government, since cops
can always cite concrete examples of how they would use their new
powers for good, while the negative implications seem vague and
hypothetical.